1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a full-color imaging apparatus with page memory, such as copying machines, printers, facsimile machines, and combinations of these, and more particularly to a full-color imaging apparatus capable of efficiently managing and controlling the use of page memory.
2. Description of the Related Art
In full-color imaging apparatuses, a technique of reading in advance for color determination is known. For example, JPA 9-99589 discloses a technique for reading an original image to determine whether the image is a monochromatic image or a full-color image prior to reproducing the image. After the determination, image reproduction, including reading pixel data out of the memory, is carried out.
Another full-color imaging technique is to read a single color component at a reading operation and to proceed with image reproduction, without reading all the colors in advance, on condition that a black image is first reproduced.
In general, a full-color imaging apparatus, such as a color copier, reads the original into four color components of black (K), yellow (Y), cyan (C), and magenta (M), and stores the respective color components in the memory to reproduce the color image.
However, the conventional advance reading technique for color determination prevents the productivity from being kept high through the entire imaging process. The latter technique of first reproducing the black image without conducting advance reading can not be applied to those imaging apparatuses that are not designed so as to reproduce the black image first.
Another problem in the above-described conventional full-color imaging apparatuses is that, even if the original image does not contain all of the color components of black, yellow, cyan, and magenta, the scanned image is maintained in the memory regions allocated to the respective color components, which prevents efficient usage of memory regions.